September 1, 2021 will forever go down as a historic day in Texas, all because the Supreme Court chose not to block a Texas bill that will ban any abortion in the state after the 6-week mark of pregnancy. While this law is one that is highly contested by both public health experts, as well as organizations aimed at safeguarding women’s health, the question that everyone is now asking is how will this abortion ban affect their access to healthcare, as well as their well-being in the future?
Signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott back in May and not blocked by the Supreme Court, the new law – which is also known as Senate Bill 8 (SB8) – means that abortions will no longer be allowed in the state of Texas after a woman is considered to be on her sixth week gestational mark. Easily explained, this is six weeks from the date of a woman’s last menstrual cycle, or as the bill says, when a “fetal heartbeat” is normally detected.
But as anticipated, the bill has undergone tons of scrutiny, especially from public figures and experts that explain that what legally counts as “6 weeks of pregnancy” is not enough time for most females to even know that they are pregnant in the first place.
Unlike other states whose cut-off periods are normally between 20 to 24 weeks of pregnancy, or before a fetus is considered viable for survival. Yet according to the SB8, detecting the fetal heartbeat within the early weeks of pregnancy “has become a key medical predictor that an unborn child will reach live birth.” However, according to a number of experts, not all fetuses show heartbeats yet at that stage of their growth.
And what makes the SB8 even more controversial is that it reportedly has negative or serious implications to both women’s rights, as well as their accessibility to healthcare.
To better understand the long-term implications of the SB8 bill when it comes to healthcare and health equity, an article in Medical News Today (MNT) shared information from Planned Parenthood, which is the national reproductive healthcare nonprofit organization, and The Afiya Center (TAC), which is another nonprofit organization but for reproductive justice, founded by Black women in North Texas.
The Problem With SB8’s Lack of Medical Accuracy
One of the major concerns regarding the medical accuracy of SB8 is on the fetal heartbeat, and how early it can actually be detected. A portion of the bill writes, “cardiac activity begins at a biologically identifiable moment in time, normally when the fetal heart is formed in the gestational sac,” which also normally happens during the sixth week of pregnancy.
But the SB8 also decrees that, “A physician may not knowingly perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman if the physician detected a fetal heartbeat for the unborn child […] or failed to perform a test to detect a fetal heartbeat.”
Yet, although physicians can sometimes detect a heartbeat at five weeks, they also share that this is not “technically a heartbeat,” since most embryos do not have fully developed hearts yet by that time.
The term “embryo” is actually a medical term that is normally used during the first eight weeks of a person’s pregnancy. But what this time could actually be more accurately described as an “embryonic cardiac activity” since it does refer to the ‘electrical impulses fired between cells that will help regulate the heartbeat once the heart is fully formed.’
Do Women Know They Are Pregnant at 6 Weeks?
According to a number of public figures, the 6-week cutoff point could truly stop people from going through with an abortion since they might not even know yet at that time that they are pregnant in the first place.
And the reason why is because some women deal with irregular periods. Other data shares that ‘as many as 9-14% of women have irregular periods throughout their menstruating lives.’
Meanwhile, women or other people assigned female when they are born can also suffer from irregular periods because of such medical conditions as hyperthyroidism or polycystic ovary syndrome. Other reasons could be due to perimenopause, stress, birth control medication, and changes in their hormone levels. Every single one of these medical conditions can cause someone to miss a period without realizing that it’s because they are pregnant.
Other Issues of Concern
Meanwhile, there are other issues of concern when it comes to the Texas abortion law, and the manner in which it calls for the action of community members to report and sue those that are suspected of actually breaking this law.
These ‘suspected people’ are those looking to get an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, people or organizations that are helping someone get an abortion after weeks of pregnancy, or medical professionals that are even just suspected of providing an abortion to someone after the 6-week cutoff period.
According to Planned Parenthood during their conversation with MNT, “Unlike bans in other states that are enforced by state officials, SB8 includes a provision that allows individual citizens — including antiabortion protesters who have no connection to the patient — to sue anyone they believe provided or assisted a patient with an abortion that violates this law. It can be used to target abortion providers, abortion-rights activists, and a patient’s friends and family, also saying that it “will continue to fight this [law] in the courts.”
How About How the Bill Affects One’s Access to Healthcare?
Women’s rights activists and a number of health experts feel that this new abortion law will end up having a serious adverse effect on those menstruating women and their access to ‘time-sensitive’ healthcare, so to speak.
Members of the Southern Roots Doula Services, which is TAC’s doula collective, namely Helen Zimba, D’andra Willis, and Qiana Arnold, alongside Zuleka Edwards, who is TAC’s Support Your Sistah Fund Coordinator, shared their collective thoughts with MNT, explaining, “Abortions later in pregnancy typically cost more than procedures performed at earlier gestational ages. Therefore, delays in obtaining care are likely to create dire obstacle in obtaining any care at all for those with limited financial resources. When pregnant people don’t have access to abortion care, and instead, are forced to carry a pregnancy to term, their long-term physical, emotional, and mental health suffers. In addition, their families and communities are impacted.”
Moreover, Planned Parenthood also said that they have already been getting a number of alarming reports from many Texas-bases healthcare providers and patients.
They shared, “Patients are scared, patients are confused, and Planned Parenthood health centers are getting flooded with calls from people trying to figure out what they can do and where they can turn for care. All three Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas are experiencing higher call volumes than normal.”
The organization also said, “One [healthcare] provider in Houston usually would see around 30 patients seeking [an] abortion each day — now, because of this law, [it] saw only six. And half of them were already past the 6-week limit. This included one woman who didn’t realize she was, in fact, 7 weeks along, not 6,” talking about how a number of them weren’t even aware that they were pregnant until after they were over 6-weeks pregnant.
Concerns About the ‘Invisible’ Impact of the New Abortion Law
For those from TAC, they also talked about their concerns about how the lack of allowing abortions may also have invisible effects on a woman’s well-being when they are forced into unemployment, or from stopping them from leaving relationships where they encounter domestic abuse.
They explain, “Women denied an abortion have an increased likelihood of being unemployed and having a household income almost four times the federal poverty level. They report an increased likelihood that they don’t have enough money to pay for necessities like food, housing, and transportation, and are more likely to remain in contact with a violent partner, putting themselves and their children at increased risk for harm.”
They also went on to say, “Texas will experience more women accessing government-funded services due to homelessness, abandonment, emotional and physical abuse, unplanned visits to emergency rooms, child protective services involvements, [and] loss of jobs, among other barriers, with the passing of SB8.”
Meanwhile, TAC contributors also point out that this Texas abortion law will just cause more friction between the differences in healthcare, especially for Black women who already deal with major inequities.
They explain, “The socioeconomic status that SB8 targets in Black people are those with income inequalities, who are on Medicaid, which doesn’t cover abortions, which leads to poor healthcare later. Ultimately, there [will] be an increase of the high maternal mortality and morbidity of Black women in Texas.”
How the SB8 Bill Deepen the Health Inequalities
TAC warns, “[A] law like SB8 will further criminalize Black folk,” also adding that as much as “85-90% of women that get abortions are already at or past 6 weeks gestation.” Just like Planned Parenthood, they also said that many women are also unaware of their pregnancies at the 6-week mark.
But even for those women that discover their pregnancies as early as 3 to 4 weeks, if they can only get abortions until before the six week mark, that means that they only have two weeks to find a clinic, make an appointment “which could take over a week or more,” then if needed, apply for funding, which according to the TAC, could mean not making the allowable deadline.
With added on pressure like this, those people that remain undocumented, as well as those with HIV, both groups who already face major discrimination with finding accessible healthcare, will have an even harder time when it comes to SB8.
TAC said, “With all of this, those women who miss the 6-week deadline now face bigger obstacles. If there was an issue with coming up with the money to cover the procedure cost, it’s going to be even more of a challenge to figure out travel and lodging cost, just to get out of the state.”
“A big, unfortunate disparity is for our undocumented birthing folks or those who live with HIV. There is already a disadvantage due to economic status, undocumented status, [the fact that they are] uninsured and now can’t afford to seek [a] healthier and proper procedure [means] that [the circumstances will] likely result in death,” the TAC worries.
The Difficult Road Ahead of Them
The contributors from TAC were also adamant about their stance when it came to the SB8 law. They explained that it will have incredibly dire consequences for women and those that can give birth, especially black women, in Texas.
They shared with MNT, “There are innumerable challenges and issues that Black women face as a whole. Being a Black woman in Texas, we are considered to be a preexisting condition.”
They go on to share, “This law further pushes the agenda of rich white men controlling everything, including women’s bodies. […] To be clear, abortions are not elective procedures. This ban ignores the fact that abortion care is, in fact, medically necessary, time-sensitive, and essential.”
Planned Parenthood went on to say, “Everyone should have the freedom and power to control their own body, decisions, and lives.”
They also suggest that should women need resources or care about abortion, to visit the abortionfinder.org website for more information.
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